Hi-Rez Studios announces significant changes for Tribes Ascend, based on feedback from closed beta testing of this upcoming continuation of the Tribes series of multiplayer first-person shooters. Word is they are shaking up their planned class structure, and will be adding more of the flexibility players have been requesting. Here's word on the next update to the game's ongoing closed beta test, which is available to those who preorder through the Tribes Ascend Website, along with some of those who have signed up for the beta:

The next update will include additional class customization and a much more polished user interface that really showcases the sci-fi, high resolution graphics of Tribes: Ascend. Hi-Rez will be collapsing the total number of playable classes from 12 to 9, but adding the ability for players to unlock new weapons for each class and further customize their loadout. Three of the nine classes will be available right away so a new player will have access to a Light, Medium, and Heavy class in his or her first match.

“We believe this system preserves class-based combat while also offering additional flexibility for players to customize classes around individual play style. It continues to provide a balanced and level playing field for all players.”

common sense tells you the unlockables are easy to get within 10 hours of playtime

Really? Most classes have three unlockable weapons/belt items and each one costs 42,000 XP to unlock. On top of that, you have a whole bunch of perks to unlock (18,000 XP each) and various upgrades for weapons, belt items, armor, packs and belt items. Oh, and you also have to unlock 6 out of 9 classes.

So, you can unlock all those things in 10 hours? Good luck with that.

So you start TA for the first time, spend a few days learning the ropes and having fun, and without spending a single penny you've unlocked most of the alternative weapons and upgrades and are competitive with anything in the game.

See above response. It takes more than a few days to unlock most of the unlockables in the game.

However you spend the next year sucking ass because people spent 15 years playing online shooters and are slightly better than you at actually moving and hitting a target.

And now these people have the added advantage of more energy, more ammo, more health, more belt items, larger radii for belt items, more damage against armored targets, more mass (for defenders) and less mass (for cappers), larger flag grab radius, etc.

Let's look at the Pathfinder class and the various benefits it offers when fully upgraded (and this is without unlocking perks or alternate weapons/items):

Are you sure you are not cherry picking? What about all the other uprgrades that are not pathfinder? You do have a point with the pathfinder.

The inherent imbalance of unlockables applies to all classes. I primarily play Soldier and I have a pretty significant advantage against other Soldiers who don't have upgrades. I have more health, more ammo, more energy, more grenades, more damage, shorter health regen delays and faster health regen rates.

As I mentioned before, if one player sucks and the other one is good, unlockables are not going to change the outcome of their fight. However, they will make things easier for whoever has them and that's why unlockables are inherently unbalanced.

Overon wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 14:35:Jerykk I would argue that the advantage you speak of is minor. Some people have huge monitors or multiple monitors and tribes 2 ascend lets you set your own FOV by actually typing the number of your FOV desired into the gui. You can say that someone with multiple huge monitors or a faster PC has an advantage and I would agree with you. But I really think the advantage of some of those upgrades is a minor advantage that I'm willing to live with.

The advantage is nowhere near inconsequential, especially since the patch. It's not enough that I'm not enjoying the game, but try to tell me that pathfinder's upgrades aren't a pretty noticeable advantage:

It's a hell of a lot harder to outrun me without these upgrades. -10% mass means that disc jumping is more effective and I can accelerate more quickly, and +18% energy recharge is nothing to sneeze at. And 2 extra, better nitrons? Huge pain for any capper I'm chasing.

Are you sure you are not cherry picking? What about all the other uprgrades that are not pathfinder? You do have a point with the pathfinder.

Overon wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 14:35:Jerykk I would argue that the advantage you speak of is minor. Some people have huge monitors or multiple monitors and tribes 2 ascend lets you set your own FOV by actually typing the number of your FOV desired into the gui. You can say that someone with multiple huge monitors or a faster PC has an advantage and I would agree with you. But I really think the advantage of some of those upgrades is a minor advantage that I'm willing to live with.

The advantage is nowhere near inconsequential, especially since the patch. It's not enough that I'm not enjoying the game, but try to tell me that pathfinder's upgrades aren't a pretty noticeable advantage:

It's a hell of a lot harder to outrun me without these upgrades. -10% mass means that disc jumping is more effective and I can accelerate more quickly, and +18% energy recharge is nothing to sneeze at. And 2 extra, better nitrons? Huge pain for any capper I'm chasing.

Snabel wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 14:06:However you spend the next year sucking ass because people spent 15 years playing online shooters and are slightly better than you at actually moving and hitting a target.

It's a game of skill, that's how it's supposed to work. If you suck, you should lose. In fact it's the only reason you should lose.

its not a "problem".. you clearly havent played the game - you can unlock plenty of things in 2 or 3 days playtime, with no money spent.. the money and the xp unlock the same things, and its a very quick process

Sigh. Yes, I have played the game. And no, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter how long it takes to unlock things. Even if you could unlock everything within a few days (which you can't), the simple fact that you start with basically nothing means new players are at an inherent disadvantage. Take two equally skilled players and give one of them all the unlockables while the other has none. The player with the unlockables has a distinct advantage. This isn't really debatable. It's common sense.

Jerykk I would argue that the advantage you speak of is minor. Some people have huge monitors or multiple monitors and tribes 2 ascend lets you set your own FOV by actually typing the number of your FOV desired into the gui. You can say that someone with multiple huge monitors or a faster PC has an advantage and I would agree with you. But I really think the advantage of some of those upgrades is a minor advantage that I'm willing to live with.

Jerykk wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 12:31:Take two equally skilled players and give one of them all the unlockables while the other has none. The player with the unlockables has a distinct advantage. This isn't really debatable. It's common sense.

So you start TA for the first time, spend a few days learning the ropes and having fun, and without spending a single penny you've unlocked most of the alternative weapons and upgrades and are competitive with anything in the game.

However you spend the next year sucking ass because people spent 15 years playing online shooters and are slightly better than you at actually moving and hitting a target.

But sure, let's focus on those first few horrible days where you were at a distinct disadvantage due to lacking 5 energy and 1 more grenade.

Jerykk wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 12:31:Sigh. Yes, I have played the game. And no, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter how long it takes to unlock things. Even if you could unlock everything within a few days (which you can't), the simple fact that you start with basically nothing means new players are at an inherent disadvantage. Take two equally skilled players and give one of them all the unlockables while the other has none. The player with the unlockables has a distinct advantage. This isn't really debatable. It's common sense.

common sense tells you the unlockables are easy to get within 10 hours of playtime

its not a "problem".. you clearly havent played the game - you can unlock plenty of things in 2 or 3 days playtime, with no money spent.. the money and the xp unlock the same things, and its a very quick process

Sigh. Yes, I have played the game. And no, you're missing the point. It doesn't matter how long it takes to unlock things. Even if you could unlock everything within a few days (which you can't), the simple fact that you start with basically nothing means new players are at an inherent disadvantage. Take two equally skilled players and give one of them all the unlockables while the other has none. The player with the unlockables has a distinct advantage. This isn't really debatable. It's common sense.

I admit that I was wrong. When I first heard about Tribes Ascend, I thought "pay to win" was the name of the game. I started playing. But it's definately not like that. Everything so far can be unlocked through experience in game. Also the unlocks themselves do improve your abilities and unlock new weapons. In terms of weapons, the unlocks for those are not clearly superior to the base weapons that you start with. They are just different. The non weapon uprades do make more of a difference in improving your abilities but they are modest improvements. In fact I am shocked about how weakly Hi-Rez is stearing players into paying. I am also pleasntly surprised that after this patch, the weapons are pretty damn balanced.

Though after this patch the map changes and inventory station additions makes the jobs of Infiltrators and base raping a lot harder.

Jerykk wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 00:52:The problem is that having unlockables in a competitive multiplayer game is inherently unbalanced. Allowing players to unlock these things faster than other players by paying money is a bought advantage. The player who buys all the classes and is constantly XP-boosted will have a significant advantage over the player who has yet to unlock anything.

its not a "problem".. you clearly havent played the game - you can unlock plenty of things in 2 or 3 days playtime, with no money spent.. the money and the xp unlock the same things, and its a very quick process

It seems to be more useful in the last patch, though that might be because of the massive -10% mass I've got on the pathfinder.

Must just be the pathfinder because the soldier gets very little boost from disc-jumping unless you already have momentum.

It feels like defense in general has gotten the shaft in T:A. Mines are a deployable and you can only carry two if you're playing a specific class and have the necessary perks, you can only carry two grenades total (if you have the perk), you can only carry two weapons total and have very limited options of weapons to choose from. Grenade-throwing is also a fully-committed animation that forces you to lower your weapon and there's a significant delay between the time you press the grenade key and when it is actually thrown.

The only change that benefits defense is the health regen and spawning with loadouts, but that doesn't really compensate for the lack of firepower and disc-jump boost.

elefunk wrote on Feb 3, 2012, 02:30:Sorry, I was talking about before this patch - $50 could buy everything in the game as it existed yesterday.

Now they've taken everything that was previously in the game, which you can still buy for well under $50, and added a ton of new weapons on top of all those other things. All of the weapons that are available to buy right now are new weapons that didn't exist yesterday.

Not only new weapons, but new upgrades for every weapon and every class. Upgrades can only be bought with XP, so that $50 of yours doesn't cover them; you need to buy boosters to level these up at a quick pace. Like I said, the majority of the gigantic refund I got went towards maxing out just Pathfinder (and I only upgraded the items I normally use; good thing I had enough experience pre-patch to know which items were worth it). Here's what Pathfinder's upgrades look like:

And who the hell snipes in Tribes? Between calling it a "disc gun" and thinking that sniping is actually a good tactic in Tribes (or remotely helpful to your team) methinks you've never actually played any game in the series and are raging just because it's the cool thing to do.

Uh, sniping was essential in many maps in both T1 and T2. Especially in T1 where cappers could grab your flag and fly off into the stratosphere at 300 MPH. A good sniper in T1 or T2 made a huge difference in any team. From what I've played of T:A, the same still applies, especially given the severely reduced effectiveness of disc-jumping.

You can buy everything in the game and I'll still kick your ass using only free stuff.

Faulty logic. If two equally skilled players compete against each other and one has all the unlockables while the other has none, the player with the unlockables has a distinct advantage. He will have more ammo, more grenades, more health, faster health regen, more energy and do more damage.

People who dismiss the inherent imbalance of unlockables often use your logic, incorrectly assuming that their opponents will always be less skilled than them. Obviously a good player with no unlockables will still defeat a poor player with all the unlockables, but nobody is arguing that point.

Sorry, I was talking about before this patch - $50 could buy everything in the game as it existed yesterday.

Now they've taken everything that was previously in the game, which you can still buy for well under $50, and added a ton of new weapons on top of all those other things. All of the weapons that are available to buy right now are new weapons that didn't exist yesterday.